On education: Is compulsion necessary at all?

We spent 2 days and 2 nights at Brockwood Park School, a school established by Krishnamurti to see how such an educational structure (established by someone who said that complusion leads nowhere) works. A few words for Brockwood Park School.. you can find it in the English countryside, almost 2 hours from London, very close to the town of Petersfield. This place is probably the most beautiful i’ve ever been.. a sense of peace can be felt in the atmosphere while taking the road to the hill where Brockwood Parks is located, next to a field where sheep were eating grass, in the shadow of gigantic trees.

The reason for writing this diary is to investigate whether compulsion, authorities, rules, cultivating ideals, stereotypes and habits are necessary at all on children education. Or maybe they are completely destructive. So the question is: “is it necessary at all to set rules that children should obey, to force a child watch lessons, to (discreetly or more superficially) punish students once there is no obedience, in order to educate children”? Don’t get me wrong.. a daily schedule, for example, is necessary for many students to know when a lessons is tought. Establishing practical “rules”make sense if you want to live along with many other people, to educate hudnreds of students etc. But when the schedule, the rules and the complete structure of education has to do with psychological compulsion, with breeding fear and blind obedience, why do we accept such structure as necessary?

A child is born and the family, school and society tell him/her what to do, what he/she should do, what is acceptable and what is not, what is prohibited, what should be his/her high goals, how he/she should behave. There is a powerful, extended mechanism that includes obvious or hidden stereotypes, ideals, rules, traditions that force children to live and behave according to specific, acceptable patterns. This mechanism also reqruits education to achieve its goals, doesn’t it? This is not an idea of the writer, we see that all around us. The question is how one will ever be able to do the things one wants to do, the thing one loves to do? How will a boy or a girl ever discover what he/she likes to do? Being tought for one’s whole life that there are specific requirements from everybody, this ability of freely doing what we really like/enjoy seems to inevitably atrophy. Isn’t this quite destructive?

So the question is can we put aside all such “psychological” rules that tell us what to do and how to do it and try to find out on our own? Can we built a totally different education, in an atmosphere of complete freedom, where no rules oblige us to watch this or that lesson, where punishment and fear doesn’t exist, where stereotypes and ideals are not violently imposed? And won’t such education help us to find what we are interested in and passionately move towards its direction? Let’s say that such a totally free education helps me realize that i want to be a biologist. I am a member of a society where you need to study and pass specific exams in order to be a biologist. Once i’ve found totally freely, without any outward influence, compulsion or bullying that i do like biology, doesn’t it make sense that i will be happily/willingly involved in the whole process that will give me the qualifications to be a biologist?

You need to answer the question on your own. So the question remains.. is actual education a matter of blindly submitting to specific curriculums, schedules, obligatory studying and all such stuff. Or should actual education negate every psychological compulsion and obligation so as to show us how to be free to find on our own everything we need to live a joyous, careless life.

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Jorge Kapa

The speaker is never important but you may examine the message, if you wish

3 Comments

hai friend,
fantastic that trip from you to Brockwood…i read that you have really enjoyed..super !
education for a boy or girl is very important …but as from the first moment,they are born , they would be brainwashed by the so-called “parents” …so at the moment they go to school , they start with a unstable basis and the so-called “teacher” strengthened that…..pour Child!!!The educator must be “educated”….
i am overwhelmed by this George..read it tomorrow, when i wake up….a little boy (8-9y.) was in a beautiful scenic area with trees,flowers and animals..on a certain moment he cries out: “Everything ,i see, is Looking”……on that moment George, i realize , that ALL what is around us …is matter,atoms….is “ENERGY” …it’s all THIS…you can’t say this in words,explanations,books etc. the only thing you can do in LIFE is Looking to the boundless infinity of the Universe….what that boy tell us…that’s “Education”…………….
with love and joy friend……………………………..